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What was your gateway product to open source?
(www.cnet.com)
I want to talk about our gateway products to open source. You know, that one product or software that made us go, "Whoa, this is amazing!" and got us hooked on the world of open source.
What made you to jump ships? Was it the "free" side of things like qBittorrent? Did you even know that some of your programs are open source before you got into the topic?
For me those products were:
- Android
- Firefox
- VLC
- Calibre
Am thinking to order some merch and I wanna make it more accessible to people unfamilliar with open source culture. Now, am looking for fairly normalized but still underrepresented product -- maybe it could serve as a conversation starter and push some people to open source
No, it is not. You say that but there is zero evidence that "people" are leaving commercial software for open source software based on concerns about transparency and control. Those are positives in most people's minds, sure, but the open source software that dominates against commercial alternatives is the one that leads on features and usability. Sometimes solely on price and free access. Those factors are at best a tertiary priority, and sometimes not even that.
That's what I'm saying here. The online circle that considers that transparency and control are the primary reason to choose software at the expense of feature limitations or poor UX is a very small niche disproportionately focused on those issues. And performatively so, at least in highly visible places like social media and dedicated influencers.
I think open source is great. It's important. And yes, once monetization encroaches into the feature set (see Chrome attempting to DRM the Internet) it's crucial to have an open source alternative to bypass the loss of functionality. But the market doesn't move to alternatives based on their open source nature, they choose the most convenient software available to do the thing they need to do. Sometimes that software is commercial, sometimes it's free but closed source, sometimes it's open source. That's fine. It's not gonna change and it doesn't have to.
That is important because sometimes open source devs forget about that and don't focus enough on the things that matter to consumers. And sometimes the open source community, such as it is, will excuse this or even take pride on working around it on the basis of that performative sense of belonging and righteousness. I think that's a risk for everybody, which is the part that annoys me about it.
And what I'm saying is, why does that matter here? The argument was about whether or not the opensource world exists, and has nothing to do with how big or small this niche is.
I don't see what's wrong with that or why it should annoy you? If you disagree with the dev's philosophy, then fork the software and fix it yourself, that's the beauty of opensource - you don't need to agree with the dev or wait for them. And if you don't have the skills to fix it yourself, sponsor someone who can. Or just use a different software. No one's holding a gun against your head and forcing you here. There's no reason it should annoy you.
See, it's annoying because I do care. Like I said, I think OS is important. The culture around it determines how projects grow and are handled, and that's a much bigger problem than "disagreeing with a dev".
Regardless, the idea of forking forever based on petty disagreements and cultural drama is very much part of the problem, not a solution and an unsustainable pattern. It's a bit disingenuous to suggest that because the code is accessible there is no room for feedback or criticism. The free hand of the market will not fix all problems, whether it's with code or the economy.